Internationally Renowned Artist Hugh O\'Donnell To Exhibit At The Morrison Gallery, June 23

Internationally Renowned Artist Hugh O'Donnell To Exhibit At The Morrison Gallery, June 23 - August 5, 2007

(EMAILWIRE.COM, June 05, 2007 ) KENT, CONNECTICUT - Internationally known artist Hugh O'Donnell, whose work is held in museums around the world from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Tate Gallery in London, opens a one-person show June 23rd at The Morrison Gallery in Kent, his first major show in Connecticut. Mr. O'Donnell will display a series of large-scale oil paintings and smaller paintings on wood at The Morrison Gallery, the dramatic 7,000-square-foot artistic showcase in the Kent Old Barn area (8 Old Barn Road, near intersection of Routes 7 and 341). O'Donnell's work examines the ways in which impressions of nature are recreated in art by creating symbolic forms that are a reflective, dynamic patterning of perceptions. Internationally renowned art historian Dore Ashton wrote of O'Donnell's painting, The Things Of Light, "O'Donnell works from the ground up, establishing levels in space with a flick of the brush, a twist or a turn, or, as a mass of shadowy strokes in mid-plane. His interest in transparency has always been apparent, and in this painting, he firmly describes level upon level. We can so to speak, look down to the bed of the stream through "the plants floating along the water¡¯s edge." Then, there is his title, which directs us to one of the primary quests of all painters in oil: to transform the density of its material existence into the supreme lightness of light itself. For painters, light is the origin of both form and space. There is no talking about form of space without it. In this painting, perfectly square (a format that paradoxically suggests infinity to me) O'Donnell celebrates a kind of light that is, in fact, available only in painting, for it is obviously an analogy and not the thing itself þu an analogy that illumines the thing itself, so very abstract in its very being."Mr. O'Donnell has been exhibiting regularly since 1975 at many prestigious venues including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City; The Royal Academy, London; The Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis; The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Modern Art in Japan; XLII Venice Biennale, Italy; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. and the IV Medellin Biennial, Colombia. Mr. O'Donnell's work is held in many museum collections including The Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York City; Rose Art Museum Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Yokohama Museum of Art Japan; and the London Contemporary Arts Society, The Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ARTnews writer Ann Landi wrote in a recent essay on Mr. O'Donnell's upcoming show at The Morrison Gallery: "Almost four decades of personal history, and a vast and eclectic sweep of art history, ebb and flow through O'Donnell's works, but there is a continuity throughout, from his earliest interests in marrying inside and outside to his more recent aspirations of wedding natural process and imagery. This is O'Donnell's first major exhibition in Connecticut, and because of the grand scope of the work, it is fitting that this show should be staged in a grand space such as The Morrison Gallery. The artist¡¯s years in this part of New England have brought a new synthesis to a body of painting that continues to grow and engage the viewer with its invention and range." As Director (1996-98) and Professor of Painting since 1996 at Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, Mr. O'Donnell's careers as a professional artist and as a teacher have become intertwined. The two practices are grounded in a study of nature, and in particular, growth dynamics. The artist lives in Washington, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts.For images and further details contact:Kim Lucchese | 800-763-4761 | kiml@markhamnovell.comThe Morrison Gallery8 Old Barn Road | Kent, Connecticut 06757 | 860.927.4501 | www.themorrisongallery.com###This press release was issued through Groupweb EmailWire.Com. For more information on press release distribution, go to http://www.emailwire.com.

The Morrison Gallery
Kim Lucchese

kiml@markhamnovell.com